Question

The crow had a piece __________ cheese ____________ its beak.
a) Of, in
b) For, in
c) Of, at
d) Of, with

Answer 1

Hint: You need to find a suitable preposition to fill in the blanks, prepositions are words governing, and usually preceding, a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word or element in the clause. Examples are – for, in, off, on etc.

 Complete answer:: Now, if you look into the above given sentence you will see we are talking about a piece of cheeses that the crow has, hence here the preposition – of, would be the most suitable one to use in the first blank. This eliminates option – ‘b’ as it gives the preposition ‘for’ to fill in the first blank.
Thus this implies option – ‘b’ is incorrect and we need to choose from the remaining options.
On the other hand we have prepositions – in, at, and with
In & at are both used to denote a place or position, but ‘in’ is used to talk about a place or position that is within a larger area or space, whereas ‘at’ is used to denote a point rather than an area. Whereas ‘with’ denotes that the piece of cheese is alongside the beak, and not held inside it that is why we cannot use option –‘d’.
Now, in the given sentence, the crow carries the piece of cheese ‘in’ its beak, because the piece would be held within the beak's hollow. Whereas, the beak is not a point ‘at’ which a piece can be carried.

So this implies that the correct solution would be the option – ‘a’.

 Note: Remember the fact that the prepositions ‘of’ and ‘for’ are often confused. ‘Of’ is used to denote a material from which something is made of, or the connection or belonging. Whereas, the word ‘for’ is used to indicate a reason, cause or purpose of an action.